This has a chance to become one of the more memorable Sunday afternoons in Forge FC history.
The Hammers will be in for 90 minutes of survival-mode soccer from Valour FC in Winnipeg (2 p.m. Sunday), but if they can pull off a victory on a pitch that hasn’t been overly kind to Hamilton in recent years, they will clinch first place in the Canadian Premier League.
Besides guaranteeing at least two home playoff dates, finishing first during the CPL regular season gives the CPL Shield winners one of Canada’s automatic berths in the 2025 Concacaf Champions League in February.
With three games left the only two teams which can catch The Hammers are second-place Atlético Ottawa, who are seven points back of Hamilton, and third-place Cavalry who are eight in arrears. A Forge win would put them, at least temporarily,10 points ahead of everyone else, with a maximum of only nine available to those chasing them.
And if Forge does prevail on Sunday, it will be the franchise’s 100th victory across all official competitions: CPL league and playoffs; Canadian championships; and Concacaf matches.
“That’s great,” Alex Achinioti-Jönsson, who started with the team in its inaugural season and is again a contender for league defensive player of the year, says of his team potentially hitting the century mark in Winnipeg.
“It’s gone so fast since the first year. We’ve had success and I think that’s the most important thing. This kind of just snuck up on us and it’s a kind of cool milestone. It’s another game to us, though, that’s how we have to look at it.
“We’ve had issues there. We’ve had trouble getting a result on their pitch every year after the first season, but we have to make sure we’re tuned in. They’re also playing for a lot, they’re still in contention for a playoff.
“They’re not going to want us to come to their field and secure our first spot, so they’re going to be amped up for the game, which they always are out there. We just have to match that energy and play our football.”
After sweeping all three games in Winnipeg in the CPL’s first season in 2019, Forge has lost six of the eight games they’ve played in Manitoba, including a “home” loss in 2022 when the CPL’s opening portion of the season was played in a post-pandemic “bubble” there. They were beaten 2-1 at Princess Auto Stadium on Aug. 4 this year, but have lost only one CPL game—that 3-0 clunker in Halifax two weeks ago—since then. They’ve set the league record for home points, including a thorough 2-0 win over York United last weekend which meant York could not catch them at first.
And now, with a victory this weekend, Forge can clinch first place and that 100th franchise win.
Valour opened the season with its first five games on the road—including a 2-1 loss in Hamilton– while the turf was being replaced at Princess Auto Stadium, and lost all five. But they’ve found their footing and have a win and four draws in their last five games. They’re in the tightly- bunched second tier of the standings, with only two points separating Pacific, Vancouver, Valour and HFX Wanderers in the race for the fifth and final playoff spot.
“They’ve got one of the best records in the league the past five or six games,” Hamilton head coach Bobby Smyrniotis cautions. “They’ve been doing a good job; they’re a resilient team and work really hard. As we know, every team in the league is playing for something right now and they’re playing for their playoff lives. They had a good win a couple of nights ago against Pacific, which put them back into the mix and made things interesting for that bottom four trying for that last playoff spot.
“So we know they’re going to be at their best. And we have to do the same thing. We know the importance of this game and what it could bring after 90 minutes. We need to make sure we are the best version of ourselves like last weekend–professional performance; getting out there and being good on both sides of the ball—because that’s what matters right now.”
Smyrniotis points to forwards Shaan Hundal and Jordan Swibel, who each have seven goals, and left back Themi Antonoglou – the CPL leader in assists and interceptions — as critical to the Valour style.
“But I think their strength is as a collective,” he adds. “They’re very good when they’re working hard. They’re a team that is always working hard. Maybe not the most industrious in the way they attack but they’re very calculated in the way they do things, They create high-quality chances, sometimes maybe not a lot in a game, and that’s something we need to be aware of.”
Victor Klonaridis got into his first game as a striker for Forge against York last weekend and ran brilliantly onto a ball to set up Nana Ampomah for the insurance goal. Both newcomers should help on Sunday, and as the Forge proceed into the playoffs.
And Achinioti-Jönsson, one of four Forge (with Noah Jensen, Kyle Bekker and Béni Badibanga) to be named to the CPL Team of the Week, says the team is focussing on this game as if it were a playoff match.
“We’ve been in this position a lot this season where we’ve had to win,” he said. “And more often than not we’ve come out with the win. But we’ve put ourselves in a spot where we don’t have the luxury to sit back and breathe a little.
“We feel like we’ve had the blade against our throats the entire time and we want to get out with the three points.”
And another berth into the Concacaf Champions Cup.